CHAPTER IV. MARCO
"All the good there was in it, supposing there was some good in it, wasthat false pleasures were the seeds of sorrow and of bitterness whichfatigued me to the point of exhaustion." Such are the simple wordsspoken with reference to his youth by a man who was the most manly ofany who have lived--St. Augustine. Of those who have done as I, fewwould say those words; all have them in their hearts; I have found noothers in mine.
Returning to Paris in the month of December, I passed the winterattending pleasure parties, masquerades, suppers, rarely leavingDesgenais, who was delighted with me: not so was I with him. The moreI went about, the more unhappy I became. It seemed to me after a shorttime that the world which had at first appeared so strange would hamperme, so to speak, at every step; yet where I had expected to see aspectre, I discovered, upon closer inspection, a shadow.
Desgenais asked what ailed me.
"And you?" I asked. "What is the matter with you? Have you lost somerelative? Or do you suffer from some wound?"
At times he seemed to understand and did not question me. Occasionallywe sat down at a cafe table and drank until our heads swam; or in themiddle of the night took horses and rode ten or twelve leagues into thecountry; returning to the bath, then to table, then to gambling, thento bed; and on reaching mine, I fell on my knees and wept. That was myevening prayer.
Strange to say, I took pride in passing for what I was not, I boastedof being worse than I really was, and experienced a sort of melancholypleasure in doing so. When I had actually done what I claimed, I feltnothing but ennui, but when I invented an account of some folly, somestory of debauchery, or a recital of an orgy with which I had nothing todo, it seemed to me that my heart was better satisfied, although I knownot why.
Whenever I joined a party of pleasure-seekers and visited some spotmade sacred by tender associations I became stupid, went off by myself,looked gloomily at the trees and bushes as if I would like to tramplethem under my feet. Upon my return I would remain silent for hours.
The baleful idea that truth is nudity beset me on every occasion.
"The world," I said to myself, "is accustomed to call its disguisevirtue, its chaplet religion, its flowing mantle convenience. Honor andMorality are man's chambermaids; he drinks in his wine the tears of thepoor in spirit who believe in him; while the sun is high in the heavenshe walks about with downcast eye; he goes to church, to the ball, tothe assembly, and when evening has come he removes his mantle and thereappears a naked bacchante with the hoofs of a goat."
But such thoughts aroused a feeling of horror, for I felt that if thebody was under the clothing, the skeleton was under the body. "Is itpossible that that is all?" I asked in spite of myself. Then I returnedto the city, I saw a little girl take her mother's arm, and I becamelike a child.
Although I had followed my friends into all manner of dissipation, I hadno desire to resume my place in the world of society. The sight of womencaused me intolerable pain; I could not touch a woman's hand withouttrembling. I had decided never to love again.
Nevertheless I returned from the ball one evening so sick at heart thatI feared that it was love. I happened to have had beside me at supperthe most charming and the most distinguished woman whom it had ever beenmy good fortune to meet. When I closed my eyes to sleep I saw her imagebefore me. I thought I was lost, and I at once resolved that I wouldavoid meeting her again. A sort of fever seized me, and I lay on mybed for fifteen days, repeating over and over the lightest words I hadexchanged with her.
As there is no spot on earth where one can be so well-known byhis neighbors as in Paris, it was not long before the people of myacquaintance who had seen me with Desgenais began to accuse me of beinga great libertine. In that I admired the discernment of the world: inproportion as I had passed for inexperienced and sensitive at thetime of my rupture with my mistress, I was now considered corrupt andhardened. Some one had just told me that it was clear I had never lovedthat woman, that I had doubtless merely played at love, thereby payingme a compliment which I really did not deserve; but the truth of it wasthat I was so swollen with vanity I was charmed with it.
My desire was to pass as blase, even while I was filled with desires andmy exalted imagination was carrying me beyond all limits. I began tosay that I could not make any headway with the women; my head wasfilled with chimeras which I preferred to realities. In short, my uniquepleasure consisted in altering the nature of facts. If a thought werebut extraordinary, if it shocked common sense, I became its ardentchampion at the risk of advocating the most dangerous sentiments.
My greatest fault was imitation of everything that struck me, not byits beauty but by its strangeness, and not wishing to confess myselfan imitator I resorted to exaggeration in order to appear original.According to my idea, nothing was good or even tolerable; nothing wasworth the trouble of turning the head, and yet when I had become warmedup in a discussion it seemed as if there was no expression in the Frenchlanguage strong enough to sustain my cause; but my warmth would subsideas soon as my opponents ranged themselves on my side.
It was a natural consequence of my conduct. Although disgusted with thelife I was leading I was unwilling to change it:
Simigliante a quells 'nferma Che non puo trovar posa in su le piume, Ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma.--DANTE.
Thus I tortured my mind to give it change, and I fell into all thesevagaries in order to get away from myself.
But while my vanity was thus occupied, my heart was suffering, so thatever within me were a man who laughed and a man who wept. It was aperpetual struggle between my head and my heart. My own mockeriesfrequently caused me great pain and my deepest sorrows aroused a desireto burst into laughter.
One day a man boasted of being proof against superstitious fears, infact, fear of every kind. His friends put a human skeleton in his bedand then concealed themselves in an adjoining room to wait for hisreturn. They did not hear any noise, but in the morning they found himdressed and sitting on the bed playing with the bones; he had lost hisreason.
I might be that man but for the fact that my favorite bones are those ofa well-beloved skeleton; they are the debris of my first love, all thatremains of the past.
But it must not be supposed that there were no joyous moments in allthis maddened whirl. Among Desgenais's companions were several youngmen of distinction and a number of artists. We sometimes passed togetherdelightful evenings imagining ourselves libertines. One of them wasinfatuated with a beautiful singer, who charmed us with her fresh andexpressive voice. How many times we sat listening to her while supperwas waiting! How many times, when the flagons had been emptied, oneof us held a volume of Lamartine and read aloud in a voice choked byemotion! Every other thought disappeared. The hours passed by unheeded.What strange "libertines" we were! We did not speak a word and therewere tears in our eyes.
Desgenais especially, habitually the coldest and dryest of men,was inexplicable on such occasions; he delivered himself of suchextraordinary sentiments that he might have been a poet in delirium. Butafter these effusions he would be seized with furious joy. Whenwarmed by wine he would break everything within reach; the genius ofdestruction stalked forth in him armed to the teeth. I have seen himpickup a chair and hurl it through a closed window.
I could not help making a study of this singular man. He appeared to methe exact type of a class which ought to exist somewhere but whichwas unknown to me. One could never tell whether his outbursts were thedespair of a man sick of life, or the whim of a spoiled child.
During the fete, in particular, he was in such a state of nervousexcitement that he acted like a schoolboy. Once he persuaded me to goout on foot with him, muffled in grotesque costumes, with masks andinstruments of music. We promenaded all night, in the midst of the mostfrightful din of horrible sounds. We found a driver asleep on his boxand unhitched his horses; then, pretending we had just come from theball, set up a great cry. The coachman started up, cracked his whip, andhis horses star
ted off on a trot, leaving him seated on the box. Thatsame evening we had passed through the Champs Elysees; Desgenais, seeinganother carriage passing, stopped it after the manner of a highwayman;he intimidated the coachman by threats and forced him to climb down andlie flat on his stomach. He opened the carriage door and found withina young man and a lady motionless with fright. He whispered to me toimitate him, and we began to enter one door and go out by the other,so that in the obscurity the poor young people thought they saw aprocession of bandits going through their carriage.
As I understand it, the men who say that the world gives experienceought to be astonished if they are believed. The world is merely anumber of whirlpools, each one independent of the others; they circlein groups like flocks of birds. There is no resemblance between thedifferent quarters of the same city, and the denizen of the Chausseed'Antin has as much to learn at Marais as at Lisbon. It is truethat these various whirlpools are traversed, and have been since thebeginning of the world, by seven personages who are always the same: thefirst is called hope; the second, conscience; the third, opinion; thefourth, desire; the fifth, sorrow; the sixth, pride; and the seventh,man.
"But," the reader objects, "where are the women in all this?"
Oh! creatures who bear the name of women and who have passed like dreamsthrough a life that was itself a dream, what shall I say of you? Wherethere is no shadow of hope can there be memory? Where shall I seekfor it? What is there more dumb in human memory? What is there morecompletely forgotten than you?
If I must speak of women I will mention two; here is one of them:
I ask what would be expected of a poor sewing-girl, young and pretty,about eighteen, with a romantic affair on her hands that is purely aquestion of love; with little knowledge of life and no idea of morals;eternally sewing near a window before which processions were not allowedto pass by order of the police, but near which a dozen young womenprowled who were licensed and recognized by these same police; whatcould you expect of her, when after wearying her hands and eyes all daylong on a dress or a hat, she leans out of that window as night falls?That dress she has sewed, that hat she has trimmed with her poor andhonest hands in order to earn a supper for the household, she seespassing along the street on the head or on the body of a notoriouswoman. Thirty times a day a hired carriage stops before the door, andthere steps out a dissolute character, numbered as is the hack in whichshe rides, who stands before a glass and primps, taking off and puttingon the results of many days' work on the part of the poor girl whowatches her. She sees that woman draw from her pocket gold in plenty,she who has but one louis a week; she looks at her feet and her head,she examines her dress and eyes her as she steps into her carriage; andthen, what can you expect? When night has fallen, after a day when workhas been scarce, when her mother is sick, she opens her door, stretchesout her hand and stops a passerby.
Such is the story of a girl I once knew. She could play the piano, knewsomething of accounts, a little designing, even a little history andgrammar, and thus a little of everything. How many times have I regardedwith poignant compassion that sad work of nature, mutilated by society!How many times have I followed in the darkness the pale and vacillatinggleams of a spark flickering in abortive life! How many times have Itried to revive the fire that smouldered under those ashes! Alas! herlong hair was the color of ashes, and we called her Cendrillon.
I was not rich enough to help her; Desgenais, at my request, interestedhimself in the poor creature; he made her learn over again all of whichshe had a slight knowledge. But she could make no appreciable progress.When her teacher left her she would fold her arms and for hours looksilently across the public square. What days! What misery! One dayI threatened that if she did not work she should have no money; shesilently resumed her task, and I learned that she stole out of the housea few minutes later. Where did she go? God knows. Before she left Iasked her to embroider a purse for me. I still have that sad relic, ithangs in my room, a monument of the ruin that is wrought here below.
But here is another case:
It was about ten in the evening when, after a riotous day, werepaired to Desgenais's, who had left us some hours before to makehis preparations. The orchestra was ready and the room filled when wearrived.
Most of the dancers were girls from the theatres.
As soon as we entered I plunged into the giddy whirl of the waltz. Thatdelightful exercise has always been dear to me; I know of nothing morebeautiful, more worthy of a beautiful woman and a young man; all dancescompared with the waltz are but insipid conventions or pretexts forinsignificant converse. It is truly to possess a woman, in a certainsense, to hold her for a half hour in your arms, and to draw her on inthe dance, palpitating in spite of herself, in such a way that it cannot be positively asserted whether she is being protected orseduced. Some deliver themselves up to the pleasure with such modestvoluptuousness, with such sweet and pure abandon, that one does not knowwhether he experiences desire or fear, and whether, if pressed to theheart, they would faint or break in pieces like the rose. Germany, wherethat dance was invented, is surely the land of love.
I held in my arms a superb danseuse from an Italian theatre who had cometo Paris for the carnival; she wore the costume of a Bacchante with arobe of panther's skin. Never have I seen anything so languishing asthat creature. She was tall and slender, and while dancing with extremerapidity, had the appearance of allowing herself to be led; to see herone would think that she would tire her partner, but such was not thecase, for she moved as if by enchantment.
On her bosom rested an enormous bouquet, the perfume of whichintoxicated me. She yielded to my encircling arms as would an Indianvine, with a gentleness so sweet and so sympathetic that I seemedenveloped with a perfumed veil of silk. At each turn there could beheard a light tinkling from her metal girdle; she moved so gracefullythat I thought I beheld a beautiful star, and her smile was that of afairy about to vanish from human sight. The tender and voluptuous musicof the dance seemed to come from her lips, while her head, covered witha wilderness of black tresses, bent backward as if her neck was tooslender to support its weight.
When the waltz was over I threw myself on a chair; my heart beat wildly:"Oh, heaven!" I murmured, "how can it be possible? Oh, superb monster!Oh! beautiful reptile! How you writhe, how you coil in and out, sweetadder, with supple and spotted skin! Thy cousin the serpent has taughtthee to coil about the tree of life holding between thy lips the appleof temptation. Oh! Melusina! Melusina! The hearts of men are thine. Youknow it well, enchantress, with your soft languor that seems to suspectnothing! You know very well that you ruin, that you destroy; you knowthat he who touches you will suffer; you know that he dies who basks inyour smile, who breathes the perfume of your flowers and comes underthe magic influence of your charms; that is why you abandon yourself sofreely, that is why your smile is so sweet, your flowers so fresh; thatis why you place your arms so gently on our shoulders. Oh, heaven! whatis your will with us?"
Professor Halle has said a terrible thing: "Woman is the nervous part ofhumanity, man the muscular." Humboldt himself, that serious thinker, hassaid that an invisible atmosphere surrounds the human nerves.
I do not quote the dreamers who watch the wheeling flight ofSpallanzani's bat, and who think they have found a sixth sense innature. Such as nature is, her mysteries are terrible enough, her powersmighty enough--that nature which creates us, mocks at us, and killsus--without our seeking to deepen the shadows that surround us. Butwhere is the man who thinks he has lived that will deny woman's powerover us? Has he ever taken leave of a beautiful dancer with tremblinghands? Has he ever felt that indefinable enervating magnetism which, inthe midst of the dance, under the influence of music, and the warmth,making all else seem cold, that comes from a young woman, electrifyingher and leaping from her to him as the perfume of aloes from theswinging censer?
I was struck with stupor. I was familiar with that sensation similarto drunkenness which characterizes love; I knew that it was theaureole which
crowned my well-beloved. But that she should excite suchheart-throbs, that she should evoke such phantoms with nothing but herbeauty, her flowers, her motley costume, and a certain trick of dancingshe had learned from some merry-andrew; and that without a word, withouta thought, without even appearing to know it! What was chaos, if itrequired seven days to make such a being?
It was not love, however, that I felt, and I do not know how to describeit unless I call it thirst. For the first time I felt vibrating inmy body a cord that was not attuned to my heart. The sight of thatbeautiful animal had aroused a responsive roar from another animal in mynature. I felt sure I could never tell that woman that I loved her, orthat she pleased me, or even that she was beautiful; there was nothingon my lips but a desire to kiss her, and say to her: "Make a girdle ofthose listless arms and lean that head on my breast; place that sweetsmile on my lips." My body loved hers; I was under the influence ofbeauty as of wine.
Desgenais passed and asked what I was doing there.
"Who is that woman?" I asked.
"What woman? Of whom do you speak?"
I took his arm and led him into the hall. The Italian saw us coming andsmiled. I stopped and stepped back.
"Ah!" said Desgenais, "you have danced with Marco?"
"Who is Marco?" I asked.
"Why, that idle creature who is laughing over there. Does she pleaseyou?"
"No," I replied, "I have waltzed with her and wanted to know her name; Ihave no further interest in her."
Shame led me to speak thus, but when Desgenais turned away I followedhim.
"You are very prompt," he said, "Marco is no ordinary woman. She wasalmost the wife of M. de------, ambassador to Milan. One of his friendsbrought her here. Yet," he added, "you may rest assured I shall speak toher. We shall not allow you to die so long as there is any hope for youor any resource left untried. It is possible that she will remain tosupper."
He left me, and I was alarmed to see him approach her. But they weresoon lost in the crowd.
"Is it possible," I murmured; "have I come to this? Oh! heavens! isthis what I am going to love? But after all," I thought, "my senses havespoken, but not my heart."
Thus I tried to calm myself. A few minutes later Desgenais tapped me onthe shoulder.
"We shall go to supper at once," said he. "You will give your arm toMarco."
"Listen," I said; "I hardly know what I am experiencing. It seems to meI see limping Vulcan covering Venus with kisses while his beard smokeswith the fumes of the forge. He fixes his staring eyes on the dazzlingskin of his prey. His happiness in the possession of his prize makes himlaugh for joy, and at the same time shudder with happiness, and then heremembers his father, Jupiter, seated on high among the gods."
Desgenais looked at me but made no reply; taking me by the arm he led meaway.
"I am tired," he said, "and I am sad; this noise wearies me. Let us goto supper, that will refresh us."
The supper was splendid, but I could not touch it.
"What is the matter with you?" asked Marco.
I sat like a statue, making no reply and looking at her from head tofoot with amazement.
She began to laugh, and Desgenais, who could see us from his table,joined her. Before her was a large crystal glass cut in the shape of achalice, which reflected the glittering lights on its thousand sparklingfacets, shining like the prism and revealing the seven colors of therainbow. She listlessly extended her arm and filled it to the brim withCyprian and a sweetened Oriental wine which I afterward found so bitteron the deserted Lido.
"Here," she said, presenting it to me, "per voi, bambino mio."
"For you and for me," I said, presenting her my glass in turn.
She moistened her lips while I emptied my glass, unable to conceal thesadness she seemed to read in my eyes.
"Is it not good?" she asked.
"No," I replied.
"Perhaps your head aches?"
"No."
"Or you are tired?"
"No."
"Ah! then it is the ennui of love?"
With these words she became serious, for in spite of herself, inspeaking of love, her Italian heart beat the faster.
A scene of folly ensued. Heads were becoming heated, cheeks wereassuming that purple hue with which wine suffuses the face as if toprevent shame appearing there. A confused murmur, like to that of arising sea, could be heard all over the room; here and there eyes wouldbecome inflamed, then fixed and empty; I know not what wind stirredabove this drunkenness. A woman rises, as in a tranquil sea the firstwave that feels the tempest's breath foams up to announce it; she makesa sign with her hand to command silence, empties her glass at a gulp andwith the same movement undoes her hair, which falls in shining tressesover her shoulders; she opens her mouth as if to start a drinking-song;her eyes are half closed. She breathes with an effort; twice a harshsound comes from her throat; a mortal pallor overspreads her featuresand she drops into her chair.
Then came an uproar which lasted an hour. It was impossible todistinguish anything, either laughter, songs, or cries.
"What do you think of it?" asked Desgenais.
"Nothing," I replied. "I have stopped my ears and am looking at it."
In the midst of this Bacchanalian orgy the beautiful Marco remainedmute, drinking nothing and leaning quietly on her bare arm. She seemedneither astonished nor affected by it.
"Do you not wish to do as they?" I asked. "You have just offered meCyprian wine; why do you not drink some yourself?"
With these words I poured out a large glass full to the brim. She raisedit to her lips and then placed it on the table, and resumed her listlessattitude.
The more I studied that Marco, the more singular she appeared; shetook pleasure in nothing and did not seem to be annoyed by anything. Itappeared as difficult to anger her as to please her; she did what wasasked of her, but no more. I thought of the genius of eternal repose,and I imagined that if that pale statue should become somnambulant itwould resemble Marco.
"Are you good or bad?" I asked. "Are you sad or gay? Are you loved?Do you wish to beloved? Are you fond of money, of pleasure, of what?Horses, the country, balls? What pleases you? Of what are you dreaming?"
To all these questions the same smile on her part, a smile thatexpressed neither joy nor sorrow, but which seemed to say, "What does itmatter?" and nothing more.
I held my lips to hers; she gave me a listless kiss and then passed herhandkerchief over her mouth.
"Marco," I said, "woe to him who loves you."
She turned her dark eyes on me, then turned them upward, and raisingher finger with that Italian gesture which can not be imitated, shepronounced that characteristic feminine word of her country:
"Forse!"
And then dessert was served. Some of the party had departed, some weresmoking, others gambling, and a few still at table; some of the womendanced, others slept. The orchestra returned; the candles paled andothers were lighted. I recalled a supper of Petronius, where the lightswent out around the drunken masters, and the slaves entered and stolethe silver. All the while songs were being sung in various parts of theroom, and three Englishmen, three of those gloomy figures for whom theContinent is a hospital, kept up a most sinister ballad that must havebeen born of the fogs of their marshes.
"Come," said I to Marco, "let us go."
She arose and took my arm.
"To-morrow!" cried Desgenais to me, as we left the hall.
When approaching Marco's house, my heart beat violently and I could notspeak. I could not understand such a woman; she seemed to experienceneither desire nor disgust, and I could think of nothing but the factthat my hand was trembling and hers motionless.
Her room was, like her, sombre and voluptuous; it was dimly lighted byan alabaster lamp. The chairs and sofa were as soft as beds, and therewas everywhere suggestion of down and silk. Upon entering I was struckwith the strong odor of Turkish pastilles, not such as are sold here onthe streets, but those of Constantinople, which
are more powerful andmore dangerous. She rang, and a maid appeared. She entered an alcovewithout a word, and a few minutes later I saw her leaning on her elbowin her habitual attitude of nonchalance.
I stood looking at her. Strange to say, the more I admired her, the morebeautiful I found her, the more rapidly I felt my desires subside. Ido not know whether it was some magnetic influence or her silence andlistlessness. I lay down on a sofa opposite the alcove, and the coldnessof death settled on my soul.
The pulsation of the blood in the arteries is a sort of clock, theticking of which can be heard only at night. Man, free from exteriorattractions, falls back upon himself; he hears himself live. In spite ofmy fatigue I could not close my eyes; those of Marco were fixed on me;we looked at each other in silence, gently, so to speak.
"What are you doing there?" she asked.
She heaved a gentle sigh that was almost a plaint.
I turned my head and saw that the first gleams of morning light wereshining through the window.
I arose and opened the window; a bright light penetrated every corner ofthe room. The sky was clear.
I motioned to her to wait. Considerations of prudence had led her tochoose an apartment some distance from the centre of the city; perhapsshe had other quarters, for she sometimes received a number of visitors.Her lover's friends sometimes visited her, and this room was doubtlessonly a petite maison; it overlooked the Luxembourg, the gardens of whichextended as far as my eye could reach.
As a cork held under water seems restless under the hand which holds it,and slips through the fingers to rise to the surface, thus there stirredin me a sentiment that I could neither overcome nor escape. The gardensof the Luxembourg made my heart leap and banished every other thought.How many times had I stretched myself out on one of those little mounds,a sort of sylvan school, while I read in the cool shade some bookfilled with foolish poetry! For such, alas, were the extravagances of mychildhood. I saw many souvenirs of the past among those leafless treesand faded lawns. There, when ten years of age, I had walked withmy brother and my tutor, throwing bits of bread to some of the poorhalf-starved birds; there, seated under a tree, I had watched a group oflittle girls as they danced, and felt my heart beat in unison with therefrain of their childish song. There, returning from school, I hadfollowed a thousand times the same path, lost in meditation upon someverse of Virgil and kicking the pebbles at my feet.
"Oh, my childhood! You are there!" I cried. "Oh, heaven! now I am here."
I turned around. Marco was asleep, the lamp had gone out, the light ofday had changed the aspect of the room; the hangings which had at firstappeared blue were now a faded yellow, and Marco, the beautiful statue,was livid as death.
I shuddered in spite of myself; I looked at the alcove, then at thegarden; my head became drowsy and fell on my breast. I sat down beforean open secretary near one of the windows. A piece of paper caught myeye; it was an open letter and I looked at it mechanically. I read itseveral times before I thought what I was doing. Suddenly a gleam ofintelligence came to me, although I could not understand everything. Ipicked up the paper and read what follows, written in an unskilled handand filled with errors in spelling:
"She died yesterday. She began to fail at twelve the night before. Shecalled me and said: 'Louison, I am going to join my companion; go to thecloset and take down the cloth that hangs on a nail; it is the mate ofthe other.' I fell on my knees and wept, but she took my hand and said:'Do not weep, do not weep!' And she heaved such a sigh--"
The rest was torn, I can not describe the impression that sad lettermade on me; I turned it over and saw on the other side Marco's addressand the date that of the evening previous.
"Is she dead? Who is dead?" I cried going to the alcove. "Dead! Who?"
Marco opened her eyes. She saw me with the letter in my hand.
"It is my mother," she said, "who is dead. You are not coming?"
As she spoke she extended her hand.
"Silence!" I said, "sleep, and leave me to myself."
She turned over and went to sleep. I looked at her for some time toassure myself that she would not hear me, and then quietly left thehouse.